


Sanguinity

by zacekova



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Post Season 4, Pre-Slash, Team as Family, group hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 00:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15352230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zacekova/pseuds/zacekova
Summary: Keith almost died and Matt helped him deal with that, but now the rest of the team needs to know.





	Sanguinity

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Melancholia](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12469140) by [Theincrediblesulkmachine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theincrediblesulkmachine/pseuds/Theincrediblesulkmachine). 



> I absolutely adore Melancholia, it is my favorite post season 4 fic of all time and I really wanted to see Matt continuing to help Keith with the aftermath. This is not an official anything to Theincrediblesulkmachine’s fic and I’m basically loosely refering to it with absolutely no referencing of specific details in it; I just couldn’t get this out of my head.

It was a couple of days after Matt had gone to see him before Keith apparently worked up the nerve to come to the castle. Everyone else was busy working (Coran) or training (the Paladins), so Matt was the only one waiting for him in the hanger when he finally docked and climbed out of his ship.

He looked like a hot mess, dark shadows under his brilliant slate-blue eyes and fingers twitching restlessly at his sides. His hair was the same as always, long and messy and dark, and Matt fought with the urge to run his hands through it.

“Hey,” Matt said, smiling. “Everyone should be heading up for dinner any minute now. You hungry?”

Keith shrugged. “Not really.” But despite the unenthusiastic reply, he followed along dutifully when Matt turned to head out into the hall.

Matt snuck glances at him all the way up to the kitchen, taking in his white-knuckled grip on his folded arms and the way he kept his head ducked - just a little - to hide his eyes behind his hair. He was still so painfully, obviously twisted up in knots over what he was going to tell the others, so bothered, still, by what their reactions would be to the choice he’d made. Matt wanted to throw his arms around Keith’s shoulders and give him one of the Holt family’s patented, all-encompassing bear hugs, but he was so tense and closed off it didn’t seem like the best time.

Dinner on the castleship was always chaotic and noisy; maybe it would distract Keith enough to give him a chance to calm down.

 

~~~

 

It didn’t.

Keith sat in his chair, stiff and awkward, for the entire meal, idly pushing his food around on his plate and staring blankly through the table. It wasn’t until everyone started cleaning up, Hunk heading toward the kitchen with a tray full of dirty dishes, that Keith spoke up.

“Hey guys.” Everyone paused, turning their eyes on Keith, and he dropped his gaze back down. “Um, there’s something I need to tell you.” His hands were clenched in his lap, knuckles white, and Matt reached underneath the table to brush his fingers over them in a silent gesture of solidarity. Keith sucked in a deep breath, holding it for one second, then two, and visibly willed away the tension in his muscles before lifting his head up. “At the battle for Naxela,” he started, “when we couldn’t get through the shield around Haggar’s ship. I— I tried to take them down.”

Shiro nodded slowly, gaze serious, but his brows were furrowed in confusion. “I know, we could hear you talking to Matt about it. We never found out what you were doing, though.”

“I was going to ram the shield,” Keith said, low and subdued. “With my ship.”

The room went deathly still, silent and frozen, and Matt tore his gaze away from Keith’s bowed head to look at the others.

Shiro was bone white, all the blood drained from his face in growing horror. Allura was pale as well, hand over her mouth and unshed tears shimmering in her eyes, while Coran stood at her side, his expression simultaneously sickened and resigned in the way that people always do when they’re used to things like this. The other three were completely frozen, mouths gaping, and Hunk’s grip on the tray of dishes went slack and it fell to the floor with a crash.

“You... _What?_ ” Hunk asked, eyes wide in dismay.

And then Pidge and Lance started shouting, voices shrill and panicked and angry.

“How could you do that, that’s so stupid!”

“What the quiznack? Why do you keep doing stuff like that? What are you, suicidal or something?”

Keith flinched, hard, eyes squeezed shut, and Matt cut through the noise with the cold, authoritative voice Olia had taught him for interrupting bullshit and carrying through the loudest of battles. “Guys, stop.”

They both fell silent and finally _looked_ , took in the way Keith’s head was bowed and his shoulders were rigid with tension.

“Keith,” Shiro said, quiet, concerned, afraid. “Are you okay?”

“I’m—” He paused, clenched his fists and released. “I’m… better. Matt came to see me after the battle. He helped.”

Matt wrapped his hand around Keith’s under the table and squeezed.

Keith’s breath whooshed out and he twisted his wrist to grab hold of Matt’s hand and squeeze back. And then he talked, stumbling through the same stuff he’d told Matt the other day - they didn’t have any other options, they were out of time, he didn’t know what else to do and he couldn't let everyone die. The whole universe was at stake, his _family_ was at stake, and neither of those things were worth less than his life. He’d been scared but it really hadn’t been much of a choice, not when so much could be saved. “I don’t want to die, but I would do it again,” he finished, voice hoarse with emotion. “I would do it a thousand times.”

He fell silent and Matt took the chance to look around the room again. Shiro’s face was twisted and mangled with barely-restrained grief and Hunk was sniffling loudly, wiping tears away from his eyes. Pidge’s lip trembled, caught in her teeth, and Lance had turned away with his hand over his eyes. His shoulders were shaking.

Allura spoke first. “I understand, Keith. Sometimes… sometimes there are things more important than one individual. But… you didn’t even say goodbye,” she said, voice quivering.

And Shiro crumpled, burying his face in his hands and sobbing.

Keith shoved up from his chair and ran around the table, literally climbing into Shiro’s lap to wrap his arms around his head and burying his nose in Shiro’s hair. Shiro’s arms came up around Keith’s back and crushed them together, hiding his face against Keith’s chest.

Pidge darted over and wrapped her tiny arms as far as they could go around the both of them, lip still trembling. “Don’t you ever do something like that again.”

“Katie,” Matt said, firm in a way he’d rarely had to be with her. “You can’t ask that of him. Of any of us.”

Pidge whipped her head up and leveled him with a glare. “Why not?”

“Because this is war, Pidge,” Shiro answered, voice watery as he pulled back a little from Keith’s hold. “We all put our lives on the line every day. We agreed to that the moment we agreed to be Paladins.”

“That’s different! It’s not like we’re purposefully deciding to go out and die!”

Shiro shook his head. “It’s not different. We all made the choice that the universe is more important than our own lives. That if it comes down to it, we’re willing to die for the sake of everyone else. We’ve been incredibly fortunate that we’ve never really been forced to choose before, that the only people we’ve lost haven’t been from our own team.”

The Paladins’ faces paled as that sunk in and Matt watched as the lingering fear of Keith’s almost-death and the gravity of Shiro’s words stole away some of their bright idealism, that enduringly-innocent optimism of theirs that Matt has admired and envied in equal portions since he first boarded the castle. He has seen enough - too much; he lost that perspective a long time ago, leaving him more cynical and pessimistic than he ever was before.

Most of them were still so young, they hadn’t had to face this before. They were always so high above the battlefield, towering over it in the universe’s most powerful weapon.

It was Lance who broke the silence hanging over the room, sounding strangled as he ran his hand through his hair and finally turned back to look at Keith with red-rimmed eyes. “We would have really missed you, you know.”

“Yeah,” Hunk said, “we would have. I’m really glad you’re okay.”

Allura laid her hand over Keith’s shoulder. “We all are.”

Keith’s eyes shimmered and he gave them all a sharp, grateful nod, and then the others surged forward for a group hug, surrounding Keith and Shiro with warmth and relief and tearful smiles.

When they pulled away, the younger Paladins chattered for a minute or two, asking how long Keith was planning on staying, if he was going to join them for training in the morning, etc. etc., and Keith told them he had a few days off before his next mission so, yes, he would stick around until then. They began dispersing - Coran and Lance to the kitchen with the pile of dirty dishes collected from the floor and the table, Hunk and Pidge to their various projects, Allura probably up to the bridge to work.

Shiro and Keith stayed behind, Shiro’s arm around Keith’s shoulder as the two of them stood murmuring softly to each other while everyone else drifted away. Matt wondered if he should leave too but something was keeping him rooted in his seat, reluctant to leave until he knew Keith would be totally okay.

“That brother thing goes both ways, Keith,” Shiro said, loud enough to hear. He yanked Keith into a hug, resting his cheek on Keith’s hair. “I’d really like you to stick around.”

Keith inhaled sharply then pressed his face into Shiro’s chest. “Yeah. Okay.”

Shiro stepped back, giving Keith’s shoulder a parting squeeze before he left to go do important leader stuff like he usually did with every spare second of his day.

Matt pushed back from his chair and stood, walking over to Keith where he was staring out the door after Shiro. “I think that went okay…” Matt said, trailing off.

Keith nodded, expression distant. It was a long moment before he took in a shuddering breath and slowly let it back out. “Yeah. Yeah it was okay.” He turned to Matt, his strange, slate blue eyes swimming with gratitude. “Thanks.”

“Nah, that was all you,” Matt smiled, waving it off. “I barely did anything.”

Keith shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t even have been able to say anything if you hadn’t been sitting next to me. Just knowing you were there looking out for me helped me work up the nerve in the first place.”

Matt swallowed. Keith’s expression was so earnest - boring into him - the sheer intensity of it doing something weird to his insides. “Um, glad I could help, I guess.”

Keith bit down on his lower lip and ducked his head, hiding his face behind his hair. “Um, Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you—” He stopped, chewing on his lip again and glancing up through his bangs. “Would you - if you want - would you stay with me tonight? Not to— just to sleep. Only if you want.”

Matt blinked. Keith’s words were a jumbled mess and it was taking him a moment to sort through it all. Was he saying what Matt thought he was saying?  

Keith didn’t seem to take Matt’s silence well, rambling in a way that was completely foreign to his usual terseness. “I mean, it’s just that when you— when you were on the base I… I slept better than I had in months. But you can say no! It’s fine, I get it. I’ll just… go back to my room, don’t worry about it.” And then he started to walk away, pointedly _not_ looking at Matt on his way out.

Matt jolted, brain finally jumpstarting back into gear, and he reached out and snagged Keith’s wrist at the last second. “Wait! Wait, Keith.”

Keith froze, turning over his shoulder to look at Matt cautiously.

“That—” Matt paused, forcing himself to really think over his next words for a second, to be sure he meant them.

He did, he meant them a lot. “That sounds nice,” he said.

Keith turned to face him fully, hope sparking in his eyes. “Really?”

Matt nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d really like that.”

Keith’s answering smile was small and shy and _breathtaking_.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](https://zacekova.tumblr.com/).


End file.
